travel | kinton ramen & the AGO

Now I’m sure some of you will see the category of this post and be like, “travel?! But Sam you LIVE in Toronto.”

I do, But that doesn’t mean I can’t travel in my own city. I grew up in Toronto but moved away when I went to university at Queen’s in Kingston, Ontario and then soon after I moved to Edinburgh, so most of my adult life I have lived away from Toronto. As a result I do not know my hometown in the way many of my friends do – and some of them have only lived here a short while. In Edinburgh, although it was very much my home, I actively made sure that I never got too settled or took the city for granted. I had the opportunity to live in one of the most beautiful and culturally vibrant cities in the world and I was not going to waste that opportunity. So for three years, I travelled. I saw the sights, I walked everywhere, I ate excellent food and sometimes I took wrong turns – and I’m not going to stop now.

Last weekend I did a little travelling. Along with my friend Ally we went to Kinton Ramen on Baldwin for lunch and afterwards we went to the Art Gallery of Ontario. We walked around the gallery all afternoon, enjoying Canadian Art, the stunning architecture and two amazing exhibits: Art Spiegelman’s CoMix: A Retrospective and Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross. I was particularly keen to see the Spiegelman exhibit as I studied Maus extensively in an autobiography course at university. I was familiar with some of his other work because of this course so not all of the exhibit was new to me, but it was amazing to see his work on display in such volume. Memory Unearthed complimented this exhibit well and we were both so glad to be there on opening day. It was quite a solemn end to the day, seeing the atrocities Ross witnessed in the Lodz Ghetto, but it was such an amazing story. I appreciated how simple the exhibit was, most sheets held up by pins on the walls, letting the images speak for themselves. So here’s to travelling in your own city. Stop putting it off. Go see the thing you say you’ll see tomorrow, today. If you have done it before, then do it again because you are bound to see something new. Just travel.

Published by tartanandthyme

2 thoughts on “travel | kinton ramen & the AGO”

I agree. I love being able to ‘travel’ in my own city. I first thought about this idea years ago when some friends were visiting from out of town. They had taken a city tour the day before and began telling me about facts and places to visit… IN. MY. OWN. CITY. That moment made me realize we often don’t get out of the bubbles we create, and we should be more open to exploring all that our own city has to offer. Great post!

I read your post last week about the AGO and I saw that you’d visited the Spiegelman exhibition. (I was a little shy to comment.) I’ve since been and I was very impressed with his ability to draw in different styles, as well as his singular devotion to his craft. A terrific artist. I’d read Maus a few weeks ago, and was deeply affected by it. I like your blog! Great photos, too.